During the last few weeks of the 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) cycle, we had 2 people drop by in our development channel trying to respond to the call for testers from the Development and QA Teams.

It quickly became apparent to me that I was having to repeat myself in order to make it “basic” enough for someone who had never tested for us, to understand what I was trying to put across.

After pointing to the various resources we have, and other flavours use - it transpired that they both would have preferred something a bit easier to start with.

So I asked them to write it for us all.

Rather than belabour my point here, I’ve asked both of them to write a few words about what they needed and what they have achieved for everyone.

Before they get that chance – I would just like to thank them both for the hours of work they have put in drafting, tweaking and getting the pages into a position where we can tell you all of their existence.

You can see the fruits of their labour at our updated web page for Testers and the new pages we have at the New Tester wiki.

Kev On behalf of the Xubuntu Development and QA Teams.

“I see the whole idea of OS software and communities helping themselves as a breath of fresh air in an ever more profit obsessed world (yes, I am a cynical old git).

I really wanted to help, but just didn’t think that I had any of the the skills required, and the guides always seemed to assume a level of knowledge that I just didn’t have.

So, when I was asked to help write a ‘New Testers’ guide for my beloved Xubuntu I absolutely jumped at the chance, knowing that my ignorance was my greatest asset.

I hope what resulted from our work will help those like me (people who can easily learn but need to be told pretty much everything from the bottom up) to start testing and enjoy the warm, satisfied glow of contributing to their community. Most of all, I really enjoyed collaborating with some very nice people indeed.” Leigh Sutherland

“I marvel at how we live in an age in which we can collaborate and share with people all over the world - as such I really like the ideas of free and open source. A long time happy Xubuntu user, I felt the time to be involved, to go from user-only to contributor was long overdue - Xubuntu is a community effort after all. So, when the call for testing came last March, I dove in. At first testing seemed daunting, complicated and very technical. But, with leaps and bounds, and the endless patience and kindness of the Xubuntu-bunch over at Xubuntu-development, I got going. I felt I was at last “paying back”. When flocculant asked if I would help him and Leigh to write some pages to make the information about testing more accessible for users like me, with limited technical skills and knowledge, I really liked the idea. And that started a collaboration I really enjoyed.

It’s my hope that with these pages we’ve been able to get across the information needed by someone like I was when I started -technical newby, noob- to simply get set up to get testing.

It’s also my hope people like you will tell us where and how these pages can be improved, with the aim to make the first forays into testing as gentle and easy as possible. Because without testing we as a community can not make xubuntu as good as we’d want it to be.” Willem Hobers